Conflicted? City Hall chief of staff lobbied by former employer on lucrative lab deal NBC New York [Video]

Since 1960s, New York City’s Public Health Laboratory building has been on the front lines of the fight against disease.  The facility at 455 First Avenue in Manhattan has been home to scores of government scientists who’ve battled everything from COVID-19 to tuberculosis, HIV, and Ebola. 

Now, the aging public building is on the verge of being handed over to private developers.  And some are questioning whether those developers have too cozy a relationship with City Hall.

According to an announcement in October of 2022, a company called Taconic Partners is one of two developers selected by the Adams Administration to “transform the former Public Health Laboratory, which is being rebuilt at Harlem Hospital, into a state-of-the-art life sciences hub.”  The announcement, which dubbed the project “Innovation East,” said the new 500,000 square-foot building “has the potential to create more than 1,000 jobs.”

But Just nine months before the deal …